Sherman's neckties
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Sherman's neckties were a phenomenon of the American Civil War. Named after William Tecumseh Sherman, a Union Army general, Sherman's neckties were railway rails destroyed by heating them until they were malleable and twisting them into loops resembling neckties, often around trees. Since the Confederacy had limited supplies of iron, and few foundries to roll the rails, this destruction was very difficult to repair.
The neckties were created in accordance with an explicit order from Sherman in his Atlanta Campaign, dated July 18, 1864:
- ...twisting the bars when hot. Officers should be instructed that bars simply bent may be used again, but if when red hot they are twisted out of line they cannot be used again. Pile the ties into shape for a bonfire, put the rails across and when red hot in the middle, let a man at each end twist the bar so that its surface becomes spiral.
After three days, only one Confederate railroad line leading into Atlanta remained intact.
Sherman's neckties were also a feature of Sherman's March to the Sea, a campaign designed to bring total war, serious destruction, to the Confederate States of America. Sherman implemented "scorched earth" policies; he and Union Army commander Ulysses S. Grant believed that the Civil War would end only if the Confederacy's strategic, economic, and psychological capacities for warfare were decisively broken.
